ExPats Theatre Presents THE BODY OF A WOMAN AS A BATTLEFIELD

Expats Theatre will present the live stage production of The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield by French-Romanian writer Matéi Visniec opening Friday, April 28 at 7:30pm, and running until May 21 at Atlas Performing Arts Center., 1333 H St NE in Washington, DC.

Written in 1997, The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield deals with the impact of the 1990s Yugoslav wars from a female perspective. In the aftermath of the Bosnian War, two women meet at a NATO medical facility in Germany: Kate, an American psychologist participating in a commission investigating mass graves, and Dorra, a gang rape survivor- heavily traumatized and pregnant. Kate's Harvard-trained psychology skills fails in her attempts to reach Dorra, who initially refuses to speak. After an evening of intoxication and liberating humor, casting out the demons of ethnic hatred, the two women form a bond and a healing transformation can begin. With a bold voice and provocative humor, Visniec explores the dark themes of interethnic hatred, sexual violence as a weapon of war, Western and Eastern perceptions of the Balkan cultures, and calls for the duty of memory in regard to war atrocities.

The playwright

Matéi Visniec is a Romanian-born dramatist, poet and novelist, living in Paris and writing in both French and Romanian. After his works were censored by the Ceausescu Regime, Visniec left Romania in 1987 applying for political asylum in France. His works reveal a strongly poetic language combined with a provocative and bold humor, containing a harsh criticism of communist and other authoritarian systems but also of the excesses of Western consumer culture. Having lived in Eastern and Western Europe and working as a journalist for the BBC and Radio France International, Visniec's voice is unique in the exploration of contemporary global society, reminding us of the relevance of the historical past, our "duty of memory", for the survival of our present democracies. Visniec's impressive literary oeuvre has won him many international awards and his plays have been translated into more than 30 languages and produced world-wide. (https://www.visniec.com/)

ExPats Theatre is a 501 (c) (3) venture founded in 2019 by Karin Rosnizeck to bring international contemporary plays to DC. Previous productions included: Surfacing by Russian-Austrian playwright Julya Rabinowich, Einstein's Wife by Serbian playwright Snežana Gnjidic (truncated by COVID in 2020, remount in 2022), Pankrác' 45 by Czech playwright Martina Kinská, Christmas Eve by German playwright and novelist Daniel Kehlmann.

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